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29

Volkov

The last shot I fire takes the man on the stairs through the shoulder, and he goes down hard, and then the gun clicks empty, and that’s the end of that.

Hallway’s clear. Two of mine on the ground floor, both down but breathing, both told to stay there until Marka gets back with the secondary team. East wing’s been quiet for four minutes. The west hasn’t.

Two sets of boots on the other side of the door, shifting their weight, waiting. I pocket the empty gun, roll my neck once, and go through.

The first man is already turning when I come through, and I don’t let him finish it. My elbow catches him across the jaw, full rotation behind it, hip to shoulder to impact. The crack travels all the way up my arm and into my teeth. His head snaps sideways, and he goes into the wall, taking a framed print with him, glass across the floor. I’m already moving because the second one is closer than I expected and he gets both arms around my chest from behind before my feet are fully set.

He’s got a crushing grip on me. Arms locked, feet planted, and he drives me forward into the sideboard along the wall. The edge catches me across the hip, and something ceramic goes off the side and explodes on the floor. The pain is sharp and immediate, but I use it. I stop fighting the forward momentum and throw myself into it instead, hauling him over my shoulder. He comes over fast and hits the floor on his back with a sound that tells me something in his spine just moved wrong.

He rolls anyway and gets to his hands and knees. I’ll give him that.

The first one is back on his feet with a chair in both hands, one of the heavy dining ones, and he swings it before I’ve fully turned around. The edge catches my left shoulder, and the wood splits against my arm. The pain goes white and stays white, my arm going numb from shoulder to elbow. He winds up again, but I duck it, feeling the air move over my head. While his arms are still out from the follow-through, I drive my shoulder into his gut and wrap both arms around his waist, running him backward into the wall. The plaster cracks. He gets both hands into my hair and yanks hard enough to pull my head back, but I get my forearm up under his chin instead, putting my full weight into his throat against the wall. His hands loosen, and his face goes red.

I step back, grab his shirt in both fists, and run him sideways into the doorframe. He hits it face-first and goes down.

The second one is up with a broken chair leg in his hand.

He swings it at my ribs, and I get my arm down to block. The wood hits my forearm instead, but it still feels like getting hit with a bat. The arm goes numb. I grab the chair leg with my other hand, catch his wrist, and twist hard. He doesn’t let go, but he goes with the twist, using the rotation, coming around with his elbow aimed at my face. I take it on the cheekbone, see white, and taste blood. My grip on his wrist tightens instead of loosening because letting go right now is how I end up on the floor.

I drive my knee into his gut. Once. He folds forward, and I get behind him, arm around his throat, locking across his windpipe with my other hand gripping my own forearm. He grabs at my arms with both hands, nails digging in, fingers finding the gash on my forearm from the earlier sweep and pressing into it hard. I lock my jaw and hold the pressure and hold it and hold it, his boots dragging the floor, his whole body fighting it, until the fight leaves him all at once and he drops heavy.

I straighten up. My arm is screaming. My shoulder is wrong. There’s blood in my eye from a cut somewhere above it, and the first guy is back on his feet across the room.

He’s got a knife now. Fixed blade, held low, weight back, and he’s not the blunt instrument he was two minutes ago. His eyes are sharp, and his grip is easy. He turns the blade once in his fingers with the comfort of long practice. The broken chair leg is on the floor six feet to my left. My gun is empty. My shoulder is compromised, my arm is half-numb, there’s blood running into my left eye, and the man across the room has already taken all that into consideration.

I grab the framed print off the floor and throw it at his face. It’s not a weapon, but it buys me half a second, and I use it. He brings his arm up to deflect, and I close the distance, getting my hand on his knife wrist before he’s finished the deflection, driving it up and back. He’s fast, twisting his wrist inside my grip, rotating the blade, and we go two rounds over the knife with his free hand finding my throat and his thumb pressing into my windpipe hard enough to make the edges of my vision go grey.

I put my forehead into his nose. The same nose I already broke coming through the door. He screams, and his knife grip goes soft. I wrench his wrist back toward him, forcing the angle, blade turning inward, and for one second I think I’ve got it.

He drops his weight instead of fighting it, collapsing down and breaking my grip, then coming back up inside my reach with the knife already moving.

It goes in below my left ribs.

The pain takes a second to arrive, and when it does, it takes my legs with it. Both knees hit the floor. I put my hand to my side and pull it back, dark, blood running through my fingers and dripping onto the hardwood. The floor underneath me tilts.

The man steps back. He’s breathing hard, nose destroyed, one eye swelling shut, and he’s got my blood on the blade, and he knows how this room ends. I watch the tension go out of his shoulders as he works it out.

“Boss sends their regards,” he says.

I try to get my knee under me. The wound hurts and the floor tilts. I put my hand out and leave a red print on the wood.

He crouches down to my level. “Berezin made threats before he died. Thought his files would keep him breathing.” He turns the knife in his hand, easy, comfortable. “They didn’t keep him anything.”

My jaw locks. I get one foot flat on the floor and push, and my body gets three inches off the ground and no further, the wound pulling at everything, blood soaking through my shirt and into my pants.

He watches me try, and he’s patient about it. He’s got time, and he knows it.

“Should’ve buried it when Berezin went down,” he says. “Should’ve let it go. But here you are.” He stands back up, tilts his head toward the ceiling, toward the floor above us, toward the second hallway and the locked bathroom door and her behind it. “It’s time I find out what the fuss with Berezin’s daughter is all about before I put her down. Then I’ll come back and finish this.”

The rage comes up fast enough to nearly get me off the floor. My fist goes into the hardwood, my arm shaking, and I get my knee up, get six inches of height, but the wound tears wider and I feel it pulling apart inside me. I go back down hard on both hands with blood spreading out beneath me.

He watches me fall. He doesn’t say anything else. He walks out of the room and turns toward the stairs.

I stay on my hands and knees, listening to him go.